UK’s Ordnance Survey Releases First Digital Map of Mars Surface

From the Ordnance Survey:

Using NASA open data, Ordnance Survey has created a one-off paper and digital map of the Martian landscape.
OS, whose database of Great Britain has up to 500 million unique geographic features and is currently working with other countries on four different countries to improve their geo capabilities, has produced the Mars map to see if Ordnance Survey mapping has potential use for future Mars missions.
David Henderson, OS Director of Products, explains: “The private sector and space agencies are currently in competition to land the first person on Mars. Becoming more familiar with space is something that interests us all and the opportunity to apply our innovative cartography and mapping tradecraft to a different planet was something we couldn’t resist. We were asked to map an area of Mars in an OS style because our maps are easy to understand and present a compelling visualisation, and because of this we can envisage their usefulness in planning missions and for presenting information about missions to the public.”
The new map covers a 3672x2721km extent of the Mars surface and has been produced to a scale of 1 to 4 million. OS Cartographic Design Consultant, Chris Wesson, designed the map. He says: “We have set out from the start to treat the Mars data no different to how we would treat OS GB data or any other Earth-based geography. Even though the principles are the same, the design and the aesthetics of an Earth map differ considerably. The cartographic style is something that is very different to your typical planetary map and is identifiable as an OS map. The key Igredients to this style are the soft colour palette of the base combined with the traditional map features such as contours and grid lines, and the map sheet layout complete with legend.”

See Also: Download Above Image via Flickr
Various sizes available.
See Also: First OS Contour Map Of Part Of Mars Released Today – ExoMars 2018 Landing Ellipse Added (via Science 2.0)
Includes links to full size map and other material.
See Also: Ordnance Survey Releases Digital Map of Mars Surface (via BBC)

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